The present invention relates to an automated synchronized dispensing mechanism for dispensing shot gun shell wads for loading and reloading of shotgun shells with a single stage or progressive reloading machine.
A favorite activity of many sportsmen relates to utilization of shotgun for hunting or target shooting such as skeet or trap shooting. It is common for participants in the sport to either buy a new shells or load or reload their own. There are a number of reasons why some sportsmen choose to load or reload their own shotgun shells. On a more basic level the act of reloading shotgun shells is found to be pleasurable are relaxing. On the other hand many sportsmen consider financial incentive due to the ever increasing cost of factory loaded shotgun shells as personal loading and reloading is significantly less costly. An additional benefit of personal loading and reloading is the creation of specific cartridges with specific ballistics not available commercially.
The completed shotgun shell consist of a number of components. These are the primer, shot shell hull, propellant charge, wad, and projectile such as lead shot.
There are currently a number of machines available commercially for the purpose of Personal loading and reloading. These range from simple single stage reloading presses in which each phase of the cartridge construction is done individually and manually to the more advanced multi stage progressive reloading presses which result in a completed shotgun shell cartridge with each pull the handle US Pat. 20040025678A1. Some of the more advanced progressive reloading machine forgo many of the manual interaction with the machine such as primer seating U.S. Pat. No. 3,320,848 and shotgun shell hull feeding and positioning some motorized an automated U.S. Pat. No. 5,335,578, U.S. Pat. No. 3,659,492.
A particular phase of the shotgun shell cartridge construction/reloading involves the time consuming and awkward manual placement of the shotgun shell wad into a wad carrier of the reloading machine or into the shotgun shell hull. This repetitive Manual wad positioning can be challenging to some individuals with physical limitations such as rotator cuff injury, carpal tunnel syndrome or arthritis to name but a few. Automating that this stage poses particular problems given the physical nature of the shotgun shell wad. The shotgun shell wads have any near limitless configuration and they are exceedingly light weight as low as 0.04 oz confounding the problem. This challenge has been approached by other inventors as in US pat. 337117a from the 1885-1886 era to more recently CN102128572A and U.S. Pat. No. 3,300,089. Today's invention approaches this challenge from a different direction.
Allowing for the near limitless configuration and appearance as well as size as gauge/caliber features have been identified of the shotgun shell wad that are fairly consistent including a shallow cup like base which serves to focus the explosive charge and provide gas sealing against a shotgun shell barrels, a thinner midsection predominantly for the purpose of providing cushioning from the expanding gas blast to the final component, a deeper cup like component which accepts the shotgun shell projectile such as lead shot. Today's invention takes advantage of these fairly consistent features in nearly all shotgun shell wads.
To accomplish the related and forgoing ends, the invention consists of an mechanism attachment for automatic sorting, metering and synchronized shotgun shell wad feeding to reloading machines described fully and pointed out in the claims. The attached drawings and following detailed description setting forth means for carrying out the invention with several preference variations in which the principle of the invention may be implemented.